


Marski’s Whumptober 2020

by marmaladeSkies



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Assume spoilers by default, Gen, Harm to Children, Horror, Implied Sexual Abuse, Kidnapping, More introspection than you’d expect, Torture, Whump, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:15:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 32
Words: 19,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26760490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmaladeSkies/pseuds/marmaladeSkies
Summary: MarmaladeSkies does Whumptober. Expect lots of horrifying goodness!Meme has been completed on time!
Comments: 93
Kudos: 90
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	1. Prompt List

**Author's Note:**

> First attempt at a daily prompt meme, so wish me luck! I adore any and all comments, even if they’re just “hey what the fuck,” so please don’t be shy.

Day 1: Let’s Hang Out Sometime

~~Waking up restrained~~ | **Shackled | Hanging** \- Dimitri gets tortured.

Day 2: In The Hands Of The Enemy

~~“Pick Who Dies”~~ | **Collars | Kidnapped** \- Claude is sold to TWSITD as a child. 

Day 3: My Way Or The Highway

**Manhandled | Forced to their Knees | Held at ~~~~** ~~Gun ****~~ **_Arrow-_ point** \- Hubert is captured by the Golden Deer 

Day 4: Running Out Of Time

~~Caged | Buried Alive~~ | **Collapsed Building** \- Caspar is trapped in the ruins of Fort Merceus

Day 5: Where Do You Think You’re Going?

~~On the Run~~ | **Failed Escape** | ~~Rescue~~ \- Sylvain tries to flee his family

Day 6: Please...

**“Get it Out”** | ~~No More | “Stop, please”~~ \- Claude removes his ID tag. Same ‘verse as #2.

Day 7: I’ve Got You

~~Support~~ | **Carrying** | ~~Enemy to Caretaker~~ \- Sylvain is taken from his family. Same ‘verse as #5.

Day 8: Where Did Everybody Go?

~~“Don’t Say Goodbye”~~ | **Abandoned | Isolation** \- Dimitri has lost everyone. 

Day 9: For The Greater Good

**“Take Me Instead”** | ~~“Run!” | Ritual Sacrifice~~ \- Edelgard tries to save her sister.

Day 10: They Look So Pretty When They Bleed

**Blood Loss** | ~~Internal Bleeding~~ | **Trail of Blood** \- Dimitri falls at Gronder

Day 11: Psych 101

**Defiance | Struggling** | ~~Crying~~ \- Claude knew he couldn’t escape, but tried anyway. Same ‘verse as #2 and #6. 

Day 12: I Think I’ve Broken Something

~~Broken Down~~ | **Broken Bones** | ~~Broken Trust~~ \- Leonie has a hunting accident.

Day 13: Breathe In Breathe Out

~~Delayed Drowning~~ | ~~Chemical~~ **_Magical_ Pneumonia | Oxygen Mask** \- Lysithea has a bad time with TWSITD 

Day 14: Is Something Burning?

~~Branding | Heat Exhaustion~~ | **Fire** \- Bernadetta burns at Gronder.

Day 15: Into The Unknown

~~Possession~~ | **Magical Healing | Science Gone Wrong** \- An odd procedure goes horribly wrong. The same Claude-stolen-by-TWSITD ‘verse as numbers 2, 6, and 11.

Day 16: A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**Forced to Beg | Hallucinations | Shoot the Hostage** \- Dimitri encounters some bandits. 

Day 17: I Did Not See That Coming

**Blackmail** | ~~Dirty Secret | Wrongfully Accused~~ \- An angry parent blackmails Sylvain

Day 18: Panic! At The Disco

**Panic Attacks** | ~~Phobias | Paranoia~~ \- Bernadetta’s debutante ball goes poorly.

Day 19: Broken Hearts

**Grief | Mourning Loved One** | ~~Survivor’s Guilt~~ \- Byleth deals with their father’s death.

Day 20: Toto, I Have A Feeling We’re Not In Kansas Anymore

~~Lost~~ | **Field Medicine | Medieval** \- Caspar is freed from the rubble of Fort Merceus. Same ‘verse as #4.

Day 21: I Don’t Feel So Well

**Chronic Pain** | ~~Hypothermia | Infection~~ \- Lysithea suffers from a side-effect of her crests.

Day 22: Do These Tacos Taste Funny To You?

**Poisoned** | ~~Drugged | Withdrawal~~ \- Claude deals with yet another assassination attempt

Day 23: What’s a Whumpee Gotta Do To Get Some Sleep Around Here?

~~Exhaustion~~ | **Narcolepsy** | ~~Sleep Deprivation~~ \- Linhardt has problems.

Day 24: You’re Not Making Any Sense

~~Forced Mutism~~ | **Blindfolded** | ~~Sensory Deprivation~~ \- Bernadetta is kidnapped

Day 25: I Think I’ll Just Collapse Right Here, Thanks

~~Disorientation~~ | **Blurred Vision** | ~~Ringing Ears~~ \- Hilda recovers from a battle at Fodlan’s Locket

Day 26: If You Thought The Head Trauma Was Bad...

**Migraine** | ~~Concussion~~ | **Blindness** \- Ferdinand has a secret 

Day 27: Ok, Who Had Natural Disasters On Their 2020 Bingo Card?

~~Earthquake~~ | **Extreme Weather** | ~~Power Outage~~ \- Sylvain hates blizzards. Same ‘verse as #5 and #7.

Day 28: Such Wow. Many Normal. Very Oops.

**Accidents | Hunting Season** | ~~Mugged~~ \- Dimitri has a “hunting accident”

Day 29: I Think I Need A Doctor

~~Intubation | Emergency Room~~ | **Reluctant Bedrest** \- Ingrid recovers from a training accident.

Day 30: Now Where Did That Come From?

~~Wound Reveal~~ | **Ignoring an Injury** | ~~Internal Organ Injury~~ \- The Blue Lions care for Dimitri.

Day 31: Today’s Special: Torture

**Experiment** | ~~Whipped | Left for Dead~~ \- Everything goes horribly wrong. Featuring the Claude from numbers 2, 6, 11, and 15.


	2. Day 1: Let’s Hang Out Sometime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri gets tortured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Hanging, torture

Dimitri could barely breathe. The rope around his neck cut off most of his air; what was left was barely enough to keep him conscious. Even that was dependent on his ability to stand on his toes- try to rest in a more stable position and his air would be cut off completely. Several times in the past five hours, he’d slipped and had to hastily struggle back to his feet as he started to choke.

They didn’t want him dead quite yet, so one of his torturers was watching him in case he failed to pick himself up and started to strangle for real. The other two and the healer were playing a card game on one of the tables. They traded off from time to time, usually with much grumbling. The healer was the only one who didn’t complain at all.

Dimitri hated the healer the most. The others, at least, acted as if this were just another job to do. Whatever Cornelia said, they did. The healer, on the other hand, took a terrible sort of glee in creating new and different kinds of injuries to heal. On both occasions when her turn came up to watch him, she had added to his torment by giving him a light shove. She’d _giggled_ at his sudden flailing.

At first he’d raged at them, spat defiance, spouted threats. But he just didn’t have the energy for it anymore. He was tired. He was so, incredibly tired. Dimitri’s toes burned with the effort of holding his body up, his neck from the rubbing of the coarse rope wrapped tightly around it, his eyes from the smoky torchlight of the tiny room. Seconds passed like minutes; minutes passed like hours. All of it passed like one stretched-out moment of dying.

When he finally gave up, it was less like falling and more like just... letting go. His feet dangled with only the slightest of shaking. His eyes teared up as he choked, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. What was the use of struggling? The burning in his lungs was unpleasant, even agonizing, but it would go away one way or another. If he got up again, it would just come back in short order.

Dimitri hit the ground with a _thud,_ rough hands pulling the rope from his neck. Air rushed into his lungs, then immediately rushed back out as he started coughing and wheezing. The torturer let him catch his breath for a few seconds, then grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him over to the card table. There was the clink of metal as the shackle on his right hand was unlocked.

A piece of parchment was set in front of him, a quill shoved into his hand already dripping with ink.

As his eyes were still watering, it took him a second to realize that the parchment was a _confession._ It detailed how he’d killed his uncle, then listed a number of lurid and very imaginary things he had planned to do once becoming king, before finishing with a plea for the people of the Kingdom to forgive him for being such a terrible, heinous prince. At the very bottom was a space for his signature.

Dimitri stared at the quill in his hand, at the confession, then up at the torturer. He looked the man dead in the eye before snapping the quill in half.

They wasted no time in hauling him back to the noose.


	3. Day 2: In The Hands Of The Enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude is sold to TWSITD as a child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: human trafficking, harm to children

Khalid woke up to darkness, his back up against something hard and unyielding. Carefully, he raised his hands to feel the area around him. Wooden panels- coarse, un-sanded- formed walls to either side and in front of him. At his back was probably more wood. The ceiling was low- so much so that he couldn’t get out of the tight crouch he was in. A knothole to his right let in a tiny amount of light and air.

His wrists were heavy and clinked as they moved. Manacles with chains attached. He gave the chain a tug, and felt an answering tug on the weight around his neck.

So. He was in a box, bound and chained. This boded poorly. He wasn’t _dead,_ at least, so his captors couldn’t be any of his cousins, but there were plenty of other people with a grudge against the royal family and especially against the half-breed princeling.

Too many other people. He couldn’t be sure what they wanted to do with him; whether it was to hold him for ransom, or sell him into slavery (Srengi slavers rarely asked questions about where their product came from, or so went the stories parents told their children to keep them from venturing out alone), or just get him out of the way of whichever of his siblings had won favor this month.

With great effort, he managed to twist around to peer out of the knothole. There wasn’t much to see. Crates, mostly. A grey cat slept on top of one of them. They were stamped with words, but they were hard to make out. The letters weren’t the ones he was used to.

That boded worse. If they were in the Almyran script, at least that meant he was still in Almyra. This strange one, though... at first he thought it might have been the Fodlani alphabet, but there were a few characters that didn’t match any of the ones his mother had taught him.

As he wracked his brain trying to match the script to half-remembered lessons about the lands beyond Almyra (Sreng used runes, Morfis the same script as Almyra, Duscur... actually, he’d never learned Duscur’s. Could it be theirs?), footsteps appeared. The cat woke up, glanced off to Khalid’s left, and leapt off the crate and out of sight.

“Yes, yes, we have your payment ready,” a woman’s voice was saying. “But we need to see the goods first. Our last supplier tried to give us dogs, of all things. Dogs! Go on, get these open.”

He heard the cracking of wood as presumably a crate was opened.

“Well, it’s alive. Not very healthy, though. Fifty percent for this one.”

An argument broke out between the woman and another person, a man with a creaky voice. The man wanted to be paid the full price for him- the woman refused. She needed healthy children; sickly ones had to be nursed back to health before they could be ‘processed.’ And wasn’t that an ominous word?

Eventually they settled on seventy percent, and then the racket of crates being opened started again, each one getting closer and closer to the box Khalid was crouched in. After the fourteenth one, the end of a crowbar jammed its way into the corner of the box and wrenched off its top.

Slender, long-fingered hands hauled him out and dropped him onto the ground. “I’m impressed- Not one dead so far,” said the woman’s voice. “Now, this one...” 

A hand took him by the chin and tilted his head up, giving him the perfect view of a paper-white face set with engorged veins and brilliant red eyes. _Ghulah,_ whispered the little part of his brain that had grown up on his father’s tales of spirits and demons. “Only a little bruised up, good. Let’s see here...”

The woman’s other hand clipped a strange device around his earlobe. There was a stab of pain, a sound like a chirp from the device, and then he was released. But only for the most part; something stayed attached to his ear. He reached up and felt it. A tag, of some odd material. Too stiff to be fabric, too flexible to be metal. Blood clung to his fingers as he pulled them away.

“Odd, that one’s crested,” muttered the woman as she peered at the device. “The outside lands aren’t supposed to have crests.” She turned to face the man- who, now that Khalid got a good look at him, was of one of the border tribes. But he didn’t have the accent for it... “One hundred-fifty percent. Two hundred percent if you find another like it.”

She then shoved Khalid roughly in the direction of a huddled group of children his own age, all chained and tagged like him. Tantalizingly nearby was an open door. “Stay put,” she ordered, noticing his gaze. “Try to run off and you’ll end up like _him._ ” She pointed at a boy lying on the ground in a pile of drool.

Khalid tried to run anyway. He didn’t get ten paces before the tag in his ear pulsed with magic and started draining the energy from his body, and one more before his legs collapsed under him. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.


	4. Day 3: My Way Or The Highway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hubert is captured by the Golden Deer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly this one is fairly mild, considering the prompts. Hubert is hard to horrify.

Hubert resisted the urge to sigh. Of all the people to be taken captive by, of course it had to be the Alliance. The Kingdom wasn’t known for subtlety and wasn’t known to expect it from their opponents; he’d have a much higher chance of escaping from _them._ Maybe he’d even be able to take out their feral prince while he was at it. Claude, on the other hand, was _tricky._

He could try to run, but he didn’t think it would work out well. The most obvious deterrent, of course, was the sight of Leonie just a few feet away, arrow nocked and ready to loose. He could probably get a spell off before she could kill him, but of that glimpse of movement in his peripheral vision wasn’t Ignatz with another bow ready, then he had severely overestimated Claude.

Going so far as to actually _admit_ Claude was a worthy opponent was a bit more than he could bear, however, and when the man politely asked that he kneel so they could more easily remove his boots and socks and anything else he might have hidden something in, he refused with a sneer.

Claude clucked his tongue and pointed at the ground. A massive pair of hands rested on his shoulders and simply _pushed_ until his legs buckled under him. That would be Raphael, he imagined, unless they’d found another hulking brute of a man to do their heavy work for them.

Hubert wasn’t sure about the other pair of hands that started patting him down. Lysithea, perhaps. Or Hilda. Definitely not Lorenz- _that_ fool was being held in Enbarr to keep his father in line. They weren’t gentle enough to be Marianne’s, either. Once they were done checking his sleeves (and finding the dagger there, to his annoyance), they pulled his hands behind his back and began binding them. Whoever was doing it made sure to tie his hands so that his palms were trapped facing each other. If he tried to blast his way out, he’d only succeed in blasting his own hands off. 

The mystery hands then plucked his second dagger and the pouch of arsenic from his belt, tossing the latter to Claude. “Check this out!” called the woman- and yes, that was definitely Hilda.

The man snatched the bag out of the air without even taking his eyes from Hubert’s face, the show-off. He raised both eyebrows on opening and seeing its contents. “Now what were you planning with _this,_ I wonder?”

Admitting that he’d been intending to poison the wine barrels in their camp would be unwise, even if he didn’t have nearly enough to ensure they all died from it. Making them too ill to fight back when the Empire attacked was all he needed, anyway.

Hilda went back to work, stripping his boots and shaking them out (he could hear his last dagger fall to the ground), before moving in to pat down his trousers for more hidden weapons. 

Once she was finally done, Raphael casually slung him over his shoulder and began carrying him, though he couldn’t see where to. It made for a rather unusual vantage point to watch Ignatz and Leonie relax their bows. They were still watching him carefully, he noted. Smart. His magic may have been neatly neutered by the bindings, but that didn’t necessarily mean he didn’t have other tricks up his sleeve. Unfortunately, in this particular case he didn’t- those daggers had been all he’d had.

“You seem to be taking this well,” Claude commented, coming up to walk alongside him and Raphael.

Hubert snorted. “I think we both know that if you wanted me dead, I would already be in a shallow grave by now.”

Claude made a noncommittal noise. “Well, we’ll see. It’s all up to your Emperor now.”

He hoped that all they wanted was a simple prisoner exchange. If they asked for something more serious... Well, Edelgard knew better than to value one man over winning the war.


	5. Day 4: Running Out Of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caspar is trapped in the ruins of Fort Merceus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Graphic descriptions of injury

Caspar didn’t know what had happened. One moment, he was rallying his soldiers to charge the Alliance forces as they retreated, and the next-

A terrible noise. A blast of heat and light. He was flung away, crashing through... a doorway, he thought. And some furniture. In the dim light seeping through the collapsed ceiling, he thought he could see the remains of a cot. He must be in one of the barracks scattered throughout Fort Merceus.

He had to get his bearings. He was alive, which was the most important thing. If he was alive, maybe his soldiers were. Except _they_ hadn’t had a wooden, moveable door and a number of cheap cots to break their own impact, had they? If they were flung like he was... they would have struck the thick stone brick walls that made up the fort. Instant death or paralysis.

So, next step: could he get up?

Caspar found very quickly that he could not. One of his arms was pinned by a hunk of rubble. As for the rest of him... He slowly started to become aware of the pain pulsing through his body. He hurt all over, which was to be expected considering what had just happened, but the pain quickly rose to the point of agony in three places.

His right arm, the one pinned under stone, hurt like someone was trying to tear it off. That was only to be expected. What concerned him was that it only hurt down to his elbow. After that... nothing. No sensation at all. Was it gone entirely? He hoped not; he didn’t think healing magic could regrow an arm.

He ignored the nagging voice in the back of his head telling him that a _crushed_ one would likely be too much to fix either. He had to have confidence in his recovery. 

He’d want healing magic regardless; his leg on the same side was broken. He didn’t know what had done it, if a piece of the wall had struck it or if it had struck something else, but he wasn’t going to be walking on it any time soon. Maybe not ever, if the break was bad enough. He looked down at it- there was no bone sticking out, but that was all he knew to look for. The different types of bone breaks had never been something he was interested in.

Now that he was looking down, it was hard to ignore the twisted shard of metal sticking out of his stomach. Oh. Shit, that was bad. Ok, maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. It wasn’t bleeding that badly, after all. Caspar wasn’t going to risk touching it, but maybe he’d survive long enough to be discovered and taken to a healer. He was a valuable general; they’d have someone searching for him. Right?

There was a noise in the distance. For a moment he thought it might be more parts of the fort collapsing, but it was too regular for that. No, that had to be people. Potential rescuers? Or foes looking to ensure Fort Merceus never rose again? If it were the Alliance, he might still be able to survive this. It was tradition for noble captives to be sold back to their own side for ransom, and Alliance nobility lived and died on tradition.

As the general noise slowly differentiated out into footsteps, clanking armor, and voices, he came to realize that it was neither Alliance nor Empire forces he was hearing. They were speaking in a _Kingdom_ dialect. That was a problem. Prince Dimitri was unstable at the best of times, and Caspar would not put it past him to decide that putting down an Imperial general permanently was worth upsetting his own side.

Any thoughts of calling out for help fled his mind. With Dimitri on the loose, he’d only be putting himself at risk. Better to stay quiet and hope they’d pass him by. He’d be fine. Even if the Imperial reinforcements never showed or were too busy fighting the Kingdom to search for survivors, he trusted that Linhardt would come from him.

The idea that Linhardt might not have survived the blast drifted across his brain, but he shoved it to the side. He had to have confidence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not too happy with Caspar’s voice here. If any of you have ideas for how to write him better, please tell me.


	6. Day 5: Where Do You Think You’re Going?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain tries to flee his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Implied sex slavery, dog attack.

Sylvain ran barefoot and naked through the woods, heedless of the cuts forming on his feet from tromping through brushes and brambles. All that mattered was getting away. Once he’d lost his pursuers, _then_ he could worry about his wounds.

Two rules, his aunt had said. There were only two rules he had to follow in the summer home if he wanted to have a comfortable life. Don’t fight, and don’t try to leave.

Well, he’d certainly broken both of them, hadn’t he? He’d kicked one of his “suitors” in the face when she’d tried to climb on him, and by that point he knew he was in for a beating anyway. Might as well push his luck as far as it would go. He’d gotten surprisingly far before his aunt had noticed.

Maybe the girl he’d kicked had a reason not to raise the alarm. He wouldn’t put it past his family not to care if their customers weren’t entirely willing either. If he got away, or if he was injured badly enough while being recaptured, then she wouldn’t have to go through with it. Yeah, that was probably it. It certainly wasn’t good luck that had done it- Sylvain knew well enough from the events of the past few years that good luck was something he had absolutely none of.

He could hear dogs barking from somewhere behind him. Shit, of course she would have set the hounds on him. That’s what she’d threatened him with last time he’d tried to run. They’d been bred and trained to defend the manor from would-be burglars, and they had both the temperament and bite to go with it.

There was a stream just a ways ahead- Sylvain had spotted it during his first escape attempt. Maybe he could use it to make them lose his scent. If it worked, he could then make his way downstream to the town, steal some clothes from a clothesline, and work on a plan to get to Fraldarius. Except, his aunt would probably expect that. She might already have sent ahead to warn her cohorts about naked men looking for shelter.

He didn’t have much of a choice, though. Without clothes, he’d freeze to death the moment night fell, and he certainly wouldn’t find any by stumbling through the woods. The town was really-

A heavy, furry weight crashed into him, sending him facefirst into the stream.

Sylvain sputtered and spat out water as he tried to roll the dog off of him. The beast growled as its sharp teeth dug deep into his shoulder, his struggles only causing the wounds to tear more. Another dog settled down on his legs and howled, alerting its master that their quarry had been caught.

He rolled, swung a fist, connected it with the first dog’s nose, and took a set of teeth to the hand for his troubles. A third dog ran up and hopped on his chest, knocking the wind out of his lungs. Buried under two-hundred pounds of canine, there was little he could do to stop his aunt’s bodyguard from running up and grabbing him by the wrists.

He struggled fruitlessly as the bodyguard turned him back over and set to work hogtying him, but he’d already wasted so much energy running and trying to fight off the dogs that he really didn’t stand a chance against him. Even in his best condition, the man had a grip of steel, and after three years of captivity... well, he was by no means in his best condition.

“Sylvain, we talked about this,” said his aunt’s voice from out of sight.

Sylvain groaned. There had been no ‘we’ in her lecturing him for an hour about “duty” and “crests” and her favorite phrase, “for the good of the family.” His parents had already taken a crested heir from him- shouldn’t that be enough? But apparently they didn’t think so. Arguing about it with her had been proven pointless long ago, so he didn’t bother anymore.

“We’ll have to return your stud fees for today. Do you even realize how embarrassing that is?”

He rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t have dared do so if they’d been able to see it- he’d been “disciplined” for disrespect more times than he could count- but rolling his eyes at the stream was safe enough.

He heard his aunt sigh. He imagined her shaking her head in disappointment. “I’ll have to put you in the dark room for a while for this, you realize. And if that doesn’t work... Next time you run, I’m cutting your ankles.”

He didn’t doubt she’d follow through.


	7. Day 6: Please...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude removes his ID tag. Same ‘verse as #2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Ear trauma, harm to children

“I’m just saying, if you’ve never had an earring ripped out before, you can’t know just how much this is going to hurt,” Yasin said.

Khalid bit back a groan. It had taken twenty minutes just to convince the other boy to _try,_ and he was still acting like like this. It was like he thought he was made of glass or something. It was just a little pain! He’d had far worse before, for sure.

“Just get it out,” he said. He reached up to touch the tag in his ear. “I can’t stand having it in any more. Doesn’t it creep you out, having a magical object stuck in your head?”

One of the girls in their little group, Aliya, spoke up. “Who knows what else it’s doing when it’s in there. The ghouls probably have it set to tell them when we’ve been fattened up enough to eat.”

“There’s no such thing as ghouls,” argued the other girl, Samira. “I keep telling you they have to be a weird laguz.”

“Laguz could well be fattening us up to eat us, too,” said Khalid, mostly for the sake of argument. To Yasin he said, “Please, just get it out of me.”

Yasin still looked reluctant, but finally he nodded. Tentatively, he reached over and took Khalid’s tag between his fingers. “On three, okay? One, two...”

It hurt like the ending of worlds. Khalid yelped and clutched his ear, which was already soaked with blood. His eyes teared up so badly that he couldn’t see Yasin taking the tag and stamping on it, but he knew it was happening because there wasn’t any other reason for the boy to be stomping his foot like that.

After a moment, he heard the sound of rushing water. “What was that?” he asked, mostly as a means of _not_ saying ‘ow.’ He had to show that the pain wasn’t really that bad, that he could be taken seriously and not be treated like he was going to fall apart any moment now. Like a true Almyran.

“It didn’t break, so I stuck it down the privy,” Aliya said as someone- probably Samira- guided him over to sit down on a cot. “They can fish it out of our sewage if they want it back.”

“I hope it’s lost forever,” Yasin said. “Or at least that they clean it well before they stick it in your other ear.” 

Khalid considered flashing him a rude gesture, but decided against it. He didn’t know the other children well enough yet to know how it would come across. His sisters would have found it funny, but an almost-stranger? Instead, he just leaned back on the cot and rested the back of his head against the wall, squeezing his earlobe to try to stop the bleeding.

It took several long moments, but eventually he was comfortable with the idea of taking his hand away. His eyes were still watering, but no longer to the point where he couldn’t see a thing in front of him. The pain was still present though, pulsing angrily through his ear.

“Next time they come visit us, I’m going to run for it,” he finally said.

“Again?” asked Aliya.

“They can’t knock me out without the tag.”

The quartet considered this for a moment. Yes, their captors would probably catch up to him, and as far as they knew, none of the other groups had had a successful escape. But surely it was worth a try? 

Finally, Samira spoke up. “Me next,” she said. “I want mine out too.”


	8. Day 7: I’ve Got You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain is taken from his family. Same ‘verse as #5.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: implied sex slavery

Sylvain drifted in and out of awareness, able to focus on nothing but the warmth of the stolen cloak he was wrapped in and the pressure of arms around him. Other points of interest faded in and out, so that in one moment he could hear conversation, in another flickering firelight, only for each to drift away as he lingered between sleep and wakefulness.

“I don’t think he can walk,” he heard Claude say during one of these moments. “His ankles...”

“We’ll have to take him to Marianne,” said another voice. Lysithea, he thought. The little mage who had taken the head off of his aunt’s bodyguard with a single spell.

He didn’t think this was a dream. In his dreams, the one who rescued him were usually Felix, Dimitri or Ingrid. Rarely, one of the other Lions, or Byleth. Once, Miklan of all people. Never Claude. Never a Deer.

(Sometimes those dreams turned into nightmares. A common trick his brain pulled was to imagine that Ingrid was there as one of his suitors.)

If this was a dream, he didn’t know what he’d do. He didn’t want to go back to that tiny room with the big window that he was so rarely allowed to open the curtains of. He didn’t want to go back to the bed with the chains and the constant stream of suitors, the chatter about bloodlines and crest potential and how impressive it was that his great-grandfather had had _four_ crested children in a row and oh, you simply must see the studbooks!

He probably wouldn’t die. He’d tried that before; it hadn’t stuck.

The glimpses of firelight disappeared, to be replaced by the moon, bright and full. It was the only constant in his life that he didn’t despise- the curtains on the window were too thin to obscure it entirely. 

Sylvain drifted off again, settling into the rhythm of Claude’s footsteps, so steady that he could almost use them to keep time. The woods were completely silent otherwise- in winter, there was nothing around to make noise. The wolves had been hunted out of this forest centuries ago.

After a time that might have been minutes and might have been hours, someone spoke up. “Can you Warp us away?” 

“Not all of us,” Lysithea answered. “Claude and me, sure. You and me, sure. But three people? I’m just not that good yet. We’ll have to pay the priests in town to send us on.”

Wait, had he been the one to ask? Huh. “She has people in the town. They’ll know...”

He didn’t know that for certain, but there had to be a reason his aunt had only been irritated by his escape attempts and not _nervous._ Even for a noble, whoring out your nephew wasn’t something that could easily be excused. She had to have reason to believe no one would question whatever story she had ready.

“We have our excuses ready,” Claude said. “Trust us. We’ve got you. And we’re not letting them take you back.”


	9. Day 8: Where Did Everybody Go?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri has lost everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Past major character death, imminent major character death.

His friends disappeared one by one.

Sylvain was dead, eaten by a demonic beast. His father had found the monster terrorizing a village with the Lance of Ruin still sticking out of its side. After they’d finally slain it and tracked it back to its lair to see if there were others to dispose of, they’d found the crumpled remains of Sylvain’s armor.

Felix was gone. Almost the moment he’d heard of his friend’s passing, he’d taken his sword and disappeared into the wilds. Ingrid had tried to track him down, but had never succeeded. As far as anyone could guess, he’d decided he didn’t want to wait to hear his father speak of Sylvain at the funeral, and had gone off to fight the war alone. That he had never been heard from again said much about his eventual fate.

Ingrid, too, had died, her pegasus struck down by an Imperial mage at Gronder Field. Dimitri had tried to fight his way to her, but it was all for naught; she was dead the moment she hit the ground. The fall alone could have done it, but being crushed under her own steed certainly hadn’t helped.

And then Mercedes.

Annette. 

Both dead at the hands of Imperial solders. Mercedes had tried to heal her friend, but it had left her open to an attack by a squad of archers. It had been over before he could even start to react.

Rodrigue had been cut down defending Arianrhod, his body left to rot in a mass grave instead of brought to Fhirdiad for burial.

And now...

Now...

He could see Dedue fall when he closed his eyes. The man had been so ready to sacrifice himself to stop the Imperial army. But the moment he raised the Crest Stone to the sky and prepared to suffer a fate far worse than mere death, three arrows dropped him. The first had struck him directly in the hand holding the stone, the other two in his stomach.

His friend was still breathing, but only barely. Not that it mattered- any healer near enough to help would be working for their enemy. He didn’t have long.

The only one of his Lions left was Ashe. The man -boy, really; all of them except perhaps Mercedes were far too young to die in a war like this- was back in Fhirdiad, readying the defense against the inevitable siege. He too, would disappear in time.

Dimitri could barely bring himself to stand up. But he had to. The Emperor was approaching, and he would rather die on his feet than allow her to butcher him like a pig.


	10. Day 9: For The Greater Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard tries to save her sister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Harm to children

Edelgard huddled in her cell, the cries of her siblings echoing in her ears. They’d taken the eldest, one of her brothers, first, then moved on from there. First, their cries for help echoed through the dungeons, then their screams, and then nothing. She didn’t know what was worse- the screaming, or when the screaming _stopped._ None of them ever came back.

The only ones left in the cell were her, the youngest of her sisters, and her younger brother. Fritz still clung to some small amount of hope that their father would come rescue them. He’d bring the entire army, he said, and they’d lock up all the mysterious mages, and find their siblings, and they’d all be able to go back to live in the upper palace where it was warm and full of food and there weren’t rats picking at them in their sleep.

Edelgard didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t going to happen. It had been weeks, she thought. If the army was going to come save them, it would have happened already. Did they even know they were still in the palace? It was entirely possible that they’d been sent to search around the entire Empire for them. By the time her father realized where they were...

There were only three of them left. It wouldn’t be long before there would be none.

The door to their cell opened. It was never good when that happened; their food was delivered by a slot near the floor, and their chamberpots removed the same way. Someone coming into their cell only meant one thing: that they were going to take one of her siblings _out._

Sure enough, the man at the door took one step in before gesturing at her sister to come with him. She silently stood up to go over. They only ever got one chance to follow orders before they were dragged out by force, and by the fifth time they’d realized that resisting was futile.

Edelgard had never been one to sit still and just let terrible things happen. The moment Astrid stood up, Edelgard reached up to grab her wrist and yank her back down.

“Leave her alone!” Edelgard shouted, rising up to stand between Astrid and the man. “Take me instead!”

The man looked at her, raised one hand-

She came to a few minutes later, her ears ringing from the blast of magic the man must have launched at her. Fritz was crying into her chest, she realized. And Astrid was gone.

They only ever got one chance.


	11. Day 10: They Look So Pretty When They Bleed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri falls at Gronder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Major character death, graphic description of injuries.

Dimitri hacked and slashed his was through the Gronder Field, slowly making his way to where he knew Edelgard had to be. His ghosts crowded him, crying out for the Emperor’s blood, and he would do everything in his power to grant their desire.

Imperial troops surrounded him, jabbing uselessly at him with sword and spear, and the few strikes that made it through his armor couldn’t hinder him. How could he be hindered when his quarry was so tantalizingly close? He could finally be rid of that blasted woman forever, if only these soldiers would _get out of the way!_

He didn’t realize he’d said that out loud until a mage that had drifted too close to his lance broke and ran, drawing angry yells from the rest of the squad. As entertaining as it would be to let the Imperial forces take care of him themself, it was far more reliable to simply snatch a helmet from a dying swordsman and throw it at the mage’s head. Dimitri couldn’t hear the _crunch_ over the screams of the dying, but he could imagine it easily enough.

A fresh group of spearmen materialized from the chaos of the battlefield, yelling something about defending the Emperor or some nonsense like that. He didn’t care what they thought- all that mattered was that they were between him and his quarry.

Dimitri let out snarl and charged at the woman leading the squad, readying his lance to impale her. He missed, the officer darting to the side and bracing her own lance to meet his charge.

He was moving too quickly to stop in time.

The officer’s lance pierced right though his armor, into his belly, and out the other side. His own lance fell to the ground as he instinctively reached for the intrusion to try to tug it out. His knees threatened to buckle, but he managed to stay standing despite the rush of pain. He glared at the enemy soldier. So what if he didn’t have his weapon anymore? He didn’t need one.

The officer’s look of glee shifted to one of shock and horror as Dimitri dug his feet into the ground and _charged,_ the shaft of the spear tugging at his innards as he ran up to grab the woman by the head. She got one more good hit in- a dagger to his side- before he started squeezing. Her skull shattered like a dropped egg.

He managed to yank the lance out of his belly just in time to use it to parry a strike from one of the officer’s underlings, and was just starting to work on tearing through the rest of the squad when he slipped in the mud and fell to the ground.

Wait, mud? It was a dry day, so why was it muddy? Oh, right. That was his blood he had fallen in. Pulling out that lance might have been a mistake, now that he thought about it- he could see the blood gushing from his wound.

Dimitri flung the officer’s dagger into the eye of someone readying herself to finish him off and started searching corpses, pressing his hand onto his belly to try to staunch the bleeding. One of these soldiers had to have a vulnerary on them. Aha! There, on the officer’s belt! He reached for it desperately, only to see the butt of a spear smash the bottle open.

He stared up at a circle of spearmen. None of them made a move to get close enough to attack him. But then again, they didn’t really need to, did they? They just had to watch him bleed out. He tried to lunge at the closest of the soldiers, but his legs didn’t seem to want to work anymore, and all that happened was that he fell forward onto the ground. A loop of intestine slipped from his wound and dragged through the earth as he struggled to get close enough to strike one of them, any of them. 

Inch by inch, Dimitri approached. And inch by inch, they retreated, unwilling to give him a chance to take any of them down. He managed to leave a sizable trail of blood and slivers of flesh behind him before his vision started to waver and he could no longer move and the soldiers, emboldened by his helplessness, moved in to strike. A spear pierced his back, pinning him to the ground. A second joined its compatriot in short order. A third chopped his hand off at the wrist as he reached for his lance, a rock, anything at all he could use to defend himself.

The fourth pressed through his neck until it reached dirt.


	12. Day 11: Psych 101

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude knew he couldn’t escape, but tried anyway. Same ‘verse as #2 and #6.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: harm to children

Khalid struggled to get away from the caretaker as she dragged him back to his cell, screaming as many insults as he could at her in a mix of Fodlani and Almyran. This escape attempt had been one of his better ones- he could get pretty far, it turned out, when they didn’t have a magical tag in his ear to knock him out when he tried to run- but it still ended the same as all of the other ones.

He’d gotten all the way down the hall and up a short flight of stairs before running into a door he couldn’t open. It didn’t even have a handle, and pushing on it was like pushing on a wall. The chase had ended pretty quickly there.

“ _Again,_ half-breed?” one of the children in the other rooms called out to him as they passed by. He aimed a kick at the floor-to-ceiling window in the front of the room, neatly hitting where the girl’s knee would have been of there wasn’t a thick panel of not-glass there.

(He’d hit the one on his own room enough times to know it couldn’t be glass. It sounded wrong. It felt wrong. He didn’t think it was possible to break it, but that didn’t stop him from trying anyway.)

He hated the caretaker. Sure, she brought them food and replaced dirty or ruined clothes and toys with fresh ones and, once, had spent what felt like the entire day fussing with the privy after Samira spent the entire previous day carefully stuffing all their toys down it and running the water to make sure they got as stuck as she could make them.

(Samira, as it turned out, was very good at silent defiance. Khalid had never been one for silence, however.)

But she did all of it with the general air that it was just a _chore_ to her. As interesting as laying bricks and performed with just as much passion. She didn’t care about them. She just cared about getting the job done and leaving. And when he got out (which was often- Khalid was getting pretty good at finding the blind spots in his room and slipping through when she opened the door), she was always the one to knock him out with magic or slip on that awful snare with the pole attached.

He reached up to finger the snare, grimacing. This thing was intensely uncomfortable. While he knew from struggling against it that it couldn’t tighten enough to actually choke him out, it always _felt_ like it was about to. In addition, the pole was a good three feet long; he just couldn’t reach the caretaker past it, no matter how much he tried to kick or bite her. The first time she’d used it, he’d been patient. Surely she’d have to get close to take it off, right? But no- she’d just used the pole to shove him through the door, and then the snare had slipped off automatically.

This time, though...

He knew pulling at the snare didn’t work. Trying to feel for a mechanism to loosen didn’t work. Trying to yank the pole out of the caretaker’s hands had worked all of _once_ until she started using the rope loop on her end to bind it to her wrist.

So this time, Khalid would have to get _tricky._

He let out the most horrible wheezing sound he could make, stumbled over his feet, and went completely limp on the floor.

He was dragged across the ground for all of a foot before the caretaker stopped. He didn’t dare look up, but he could hear footsteps. One forward, one back. As if she was unsure. A click- probably one of the devices she kept on her belt. Talking. He didn’t know to who, or what she was saying; he couldn’t understand a word _any_ of the ghouls said.

He had to be patient. He waited there on the ground until he heard another pair of footsteps. He waited until the footsteps got close, and he waited until someone carefully rolled him over with a foot, then knelt down to feel the snare around his neck.

Khalid cracked an eyelid open. Not the caretaker, unfortunately. This was one of the other ghouls he’d seen around, one with bright orange hair instead of white. Well, fine. He didn’t mind switching targets if one was going to make himself available.

He lunged forward, managing to get one of the ghoul’s hands between his teeth. He bit down as hard as he could, the creature’s papery skin breaking and filling his mouth with blood. The newcomer let out a satisfying shriek and tried to yank his hand away, but Khalid’s teeth were stuck fast. 

He then struck out with both hands, trying to dig his thumbs into the newcomer’s eyes, but by then the caretaker had come forward to help her compatriot. She wrapped one arm around Khalid’s midsection, pinning his arms to his side, then used her other hand to pinch his nose shut.

Khalid waited as long as he could, shaking the newcomer’s hand to try to work his teeth in deeper, before lack of air forced him to open his mouth and start gasping for breath. The newcomer wasted no time in running away, despite the caretaker’s protests.

The caretaker, for her part, wasted no time in getting the pole between him and her. And then it was back to being dragged to his room. At least he managed to get a _small_ amount of revenge this time.


	13. Day 12: I Think I’ve Broken Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leonie has a hunting accident.

Every part of her body hurt.

Leonie stared up at the cliff she’d fallen down, grimacing. She hadn’t expected the ledge to give way like that, but that was no excuse for carelessness. She knew these woods better than the back of her hand, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have any nasty surprises in store for hunters with more eagerness than sense.

So much for her snares. Even if she _had_ caught a rabbit, it would be buried under the earth and snow. She was in no condition to go digging around, hoping to come across it. She’d just have to call the day’s trapping a wash. She didn’t want to -her village had enough food for the time being, but it was going to be a long, harsh winter if all of their expeditions ended like this- but she didn’t exactly have a choice.

Right. Time to take stock of her injuries.

She could think clearly and her ears weren’t ringing, so her head was unharmed. Well, for the most part- the gash under her eye told her that she’d almost lost half of her vision to the bramble she’d fallen in, but she _hadn’t_ and that was what mattered.

Chest- also unharmed, except for where a thorn had managed to stab through her clothes. A nuisance, nothing more. Abdomen- broken rib. The moment she took notice of it, it started to throb ominously.

That alone meant she’d be doing very little this winter except tying and checking snares. She certainly wouldn’t be stalking larger prey- what would be the point if she couldn’t carry it back to her village? And shooting a bow with a broken rib was... difficult. She’d done it before, once, and she had no desire to do it again; it had been so intensely painful that she couldn’t help but scream. The deer she’d spent all day tracking had noticed and fled.

Moving on.

Right arm was intact, albeit covered in some nasty scratches she’d have to remember to check for fester. Left wrist was broken. Yeah, she wasn’t going to be shooting anything for a long while.

Leonie sighed and resigned herself to taking a support role in that winter’s hunting. This was fine. She hated relying on other people, but it wasn’t like she was the only hunter in the village. Her parents, at least, would be able to pick up her slack. Her siblings, too. Maybe even Mattie. The lass loved hearing her stories from Garreg Mach- he’d probably be willing to trade some rabbit stew for a tale or two.

Now, the most important question: could she get up, or was she doomed to lie here until she froze to death?

Right leg was intact, albeit bruised and beaten; neither of her legs had been cushioned by the bramble like her body had been. Left leg... left foot felt tender and especially painful. Possibly she’d broken some of the little bones in the foot. Hopefully not. No way to tell until she got back to the village.

Slowly, she stood up, putting almost all of her weight on her right foot. Her left didn’t want to bear anything at all, which boded poorly, but if she moved quickly, maybe she could...

Nope, that didn’t work. Leonie looked around for a sturdy stick. Her bow was off to the right, and it even looked intact, but using it as a crutch would probably damage it. Too risky; good bows took a long time to make and were extremely valuable.

After what felt like an eternity, she managed to hop over to a tree with a low-lying branch she could start hacking away at with her knife. She mentally cursed herself for not bringing a handsaw- her sister had suggested it, in case she needed to cut fresh anchors for the snares, but she’d thought it was unnecessary. A sturdy knife would do, she’d said! Stupid, stupid...

It took a long time. Without being able to use her off-hand to hold the branch steady, it swayed and prevented her from cutting it effectively. By the time she finally got the blasted thing down, she was starting to shiver from the cold. 

She had to get back to the village before the weather turned. Being caught outside in a snowstorm was bad enough, but being caught outside in a snowstorm _without being able to make a shelter_ was a death sentence. Fortunately, she was able to lean on her stick and hobble instead of hop back. She was even able to retrieve her bow without falling over!

Now she just had to put one foot in front of the other. One foot, in front of the other...


	14. Day 13: Breathe In Breathe Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lysithea has a bad time with TWSITD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Harm to children

Lysithea felt like she was drowning in air. She could barely breathe, and on the rare occasions she _could_ manage a deep breath, it rattled horribly and threw her into a coughing fit that hurt like she was being stabbed in the ribs. Even on the rare occasions she didn’t, her lungs _ached._

(“Her body’s rejecting it. I told you Fraldarius was too harsh.”)

It was exhausting. She just wanted to sleep, but the coughing wouldn’t let her. The harsh lights in the room wouldn’t let her. The mysterious mages wouldn’t let her. They kept making her sit up, cough, lie down, sit up, cough again. A fist thumped on her back to loosen the fluid in her lungs.

(“If we can’t keep Fraldarius stable, how will we ever manage with Flames? Maybe combining it with Charon was the wrong idea. Do we have a healing crest on hand?”)

A mask covered her face, providing fresh air that didn’t smell like blood or sickness. They removed it only to let her cough, then quickly put it back on when the fit subsided. She hated it- it itched horribly- but she hated the smell of her cell even more. She didn’t fight when they put it on her.

(“One of the other teams has a Riegan, but it’s earmarked for the Homunculus Project.”)

Sit up. Cough. Lie down. Sit up. Cough. Lie down. Sit up. Cough. Lie down.

(“Maybe a magic-enhancing crest instead. Do we still have that Gloucester?”)

This had happened to one of the other children, she remembered. The cook’s son. He’d gotten worse and worse and worse, until he was coughing up blood instead of phlegm. Eventually the mages had taken him away and never brought him back. Lysithea could only assume he’d died.

(“Dion, put her under. We need to swap crests.”)

She was so, so tired...


	15. Day 14: Is Something Burning?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernadetta burns at Gronder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: burning alive

It was supposed to be simple. Lure the enemy up onto the hill and retreat in such a way that lured them further up the hill. Make them think she was leaving because she was a coward and they were much stronger than her, not because there was a trap for them. Letting them have the ballista was fine, because it wouldn’t be intact for very long anyway.

The fire trap was never supposed to go off while Bernadetta was _still on the hill._

She ran down the hill, trying to pat out the flames enveloping her clothes, her hair, but to no avail- the fire was _everywhere._ She had to get out of here. She had to leave. But she couldn’t see where the fire ended and she didn’t even know if she was running in the right direction- all she knew was that she had to go _down._

She couldn’t even scream because the smoke choked her if she opened her mouth.

There was a horrible acrid smell in her nose and she didn’t know if it was the smoke or if it was her burning hair and clothes or if it was her flesh. Maybe it was the fire itself.

Someone called her name. She didn’t know who.

Bernadetta managed to take in a deep enough breath to shout, “Help!” before the rest of her words were drowned in coughing.

Magic wrapped around her and whisked her elsewhere. She didn’t spare a look to determine where, exactly, because the ground was wet and that meant _it could put her out._ She dropped to the ground and rolled, the blood soaking the earth sizzling even as it quenched the flames. But even though she could no longer see the fire licking at her, she still felt like she was aflame. Her body was burning hot, and every movement just made it even worse. Desperately, she kept rolling on the ground. If she drowned the fire enough, it would go away. It had to.

A hand grabbed her by the shoulder, eliciting a scream. She flailed wildly, trying to make the pain go away, but it didn’t stop and in the back of her mind she wondered who would do that and why? All of the Eagles knew better than to grab her all of a sudden. She turned to face whoever it was, ready to demand answers, and-

-it wasn’t one of the Eagles who had saved her. Flayn stood there, gripping her staff so tightly her hands went white. Next to her, holding on to try to keep her from hurting herself even more in her flailing, was Sylvain.

“On three,” Flayn was saying to him. (And her, probably.) “One, two...”

When he let go of her shoulder, some of her skin came off with his hand.


	16. Day 15: Into The Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An odd procedure goes horribly wrong. The same Claude-stolen-by-TWSITD ‘verse as numbers 2, 6, and 11.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Harm to children. Man am I getting a lot of mileage out of that tag.

Khalid had come to hate needles. There were just too many in this horrible place.

There were the needles that drew blood and fed it into a device that made the ghouls gather around and make approving noises. There were the needles that stabbed into his ear and left a tag behind. He always made sure to have it yanked out as soon as he could convince Yasin to do it. When his ears became too ragged and full of scar tissue to hold a tag, there came the needle that stuck a tiny metal chip deep into the flesh of his arm. Soon after, there were the needles, the hundreds of tiny needles, that jabbed a tattoo into his cheek. He almost preferred the tags.

The worst needles so far, however, were the ones stuck into his arm.

He didn’t know why they were there. The caretaker had just come, used the chip in his arm to knock him out (and once he could find something with an edge to it, he was yanking _that_ too), and he’d woken up in a bed with the needles in his arm and a ghoul doing things to a machine in the room. Not the caretaker. This one was taller and thinner, and older too. Khalid tensed up. It was never good when a new one showed up. He knew what the caretaker would do at any given moment, but strangers...

The last time one had showed up, it had been to take away one of the children across the hall. She’d gotten sick, and her cellmates had locked her in the privy so she wouldn’t get _them_ sick, and then the ghouls had come and taken her away. She’d been returned, yes, but only after four days, and by that point everyone had been convinced she was dead.

It had been quite the commotion when she was brought back.

This stranger was rummaging around in a set of drawers near a large machine of some sort, boxy and covered with lights and panels with unreadable words on them. Periodically, the ghoul rose up to attach something to the machine. A canister. Two small, transparent, oddly flexible tubes, which were attached both to the machine and to the needles in his arm. Another device. Khalid could only barely turn his head to look at what was going on, because of the straps.

Because apparently he was infamous enough that they felt the need to strap him down to a chair for... whatever this was for. His arms were completely immobile, no matter how much he strained to wriggle them, and his head only had a little give to it.

Khalid bared his teeth at the ghoul. He couldn’t lunge at it, but he could at least _threaten_ to bite it.

The ghoul paid him no heed, instead reaching up to press a panel on the machine. It immediately started humming, and some lights appeared. None of them meant anything to him, but the ghoul seemed to approve which meant that Khalid did _not._

Blood began to flow from his arm, through one tube, and into the machine. It then came back out of the machine, through the other tube, and back into his arm. That seemed... pointless. Why would they bother taking blood if they were only going to give it back? They couldn’t be adding something to it; Khalid knew from experience that there were much easier ways to go about that. Were they changing it somehow? Why?

The ghoul pressed a button on the machine (which began humming slightly louder), then sat down and reached for a little device much like the ones used to activate tags. He pointed it at a panel on the wall, which made it light up.

Images formed on the panel, which a moment later started making noises as well. A ghoul wearing a backpack was gesturing wildly at... a salamander? A small, white salamander with stalks coming out of its head. Khalid glanced over at the stranger. Yes, this did in fact seem to be interesting to it. Maybe he would find it interesting, too, if he could understand anything the ghoul was saying at all.

Ugh, the room was annoyingly chilly. Maybe the panel was supposed to distract from that. Maybe instead of trying to distract him, the ghouls should have given him a blanket. The gowns all the children wore weren’t exactly the warmest clothing he’d ever had.

And how could Khalid be _bored_ when there were needles in his arm? This sucked. The ghoul on the panel was _still_ talking, apparently about the salamander, the stranger was still watching it intently, and none of this was fair at all.

Khalid turned his head to look at the machine and the needles. Yeah, still humming away. Blood went out, blood went in.

...why was he sweating? The room was cold- how could he be sweating? A chill went down his spine, only he wasn’t sure if it was a normal, cold-related chill or if it was- was he being _poisoned?_ There were so many easier ways to do that, though! He’d even done one of them himself, to a particularly annoying cousin who frankly deserved to be sick to his stomach for a few days.

After a few moments, he realized that the cold couldn’t be from the room itself; it was _localized,_ radiating from his arm. He felt like ice was crawling through the veins where his blood went back into his body. It _hurt_ and it itched and he just wanted so incredibly badly to rip the needles out and the freezing sensation was climbing up his arm and forget ripping the needles out he’d chew his own arm off to escape this.

It went so _slowly,_ too, and oh, maybe the panel (now featuring bats instead of that stupid salamander) was meant to distract from _this_ so he wouldn’t panic and try to break free of his bonds. But that was certainly a dumb thing for them to think because he was sure trying now, but the straps were too tight and too strong.

Khalid felt his heart give a horrible stutter. The machine began screeching, loud and insistent, and the ghoul leapt to its feet and hammered a button.

The icy sensation faded into a mere extreme cold, but his heart still felt _wrong,_ like something was gripping it. He was shivering fiercely now, he noticed, teeth chattering even as beads of sweat dripped from his forehead.

The ghoul was doing something with the machine, turning dials, peering at panels. Finally it sighed, pinched the bridge of its nose, then pressed another button.

Warmth flooded Khalid’s body, easing the itching and the pain as it went. He was still sweating, and his heart still felt muffled, for lack of a better word, but at least the cold was going away. He allowed himself to relax into the sensation, just a little bit.

After a little while, he felt the sting of the needles being removed. Finally. Whatever they were doing to him, he hoped it was worth it. The release of tension as the strap holding his head down was loosened. Then, suddenly, a hand in front of his nose.

He blinked at it, looked up at the ghoul, who was carefully _not_ looking at him, then back at the hand. Well, if they were going to just give him an invitation...

He snapped his head forward and bit deep into the offered hand, growling for good measure. His crest blinked into existence, easing the pain in his chest. The lingering cold ceased. The machine stopped screeching. He stopped sweating. If he was looking, he was sure he’d see the marks from the needles disappearing.

The ghoul had to make him sleep with magic to get him to let go of the hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The main disadvantage with this ‘verse is that no one tells Claude what’s going on so the information available to the reader is limited. The advantage is that then I get to make people guess! So tell me: what do you think they were trying to do?


	17. Day 16: A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri encounters some bandits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: hallucinated ghosts

There were three bandits, one holding the farmer at knifepoint. Thin, malnourished. Desperate. Looking for an easy payout. Dimitri’s eye roved across them before settling on the apparent leader.

“-so just be a good boy and come with us, yeah?” he was saying, lazily waving his sword to point alternately at Dimitri and the farmer. “Else your old man’s getting it.”

Dimitri looked over at his father’s ghost, who shrugged at him. He wasn’t sure why they thought the farmer was his father- perhaps they just saw an old man and a young one and made assumptions- but it didn’t matter enough to be worth correcting. The bandits wouldn’t be living very long, anyway.

The farmer had mistaken him for a conscript off to fight the Dukedom, had given him a bowl of cabbage soup and a place in the barn to sleep for the night. Saving him would be thanks enough for it, but it would be hard to kill the bandits without harming the farmer...

_“That doesn’t really matter now, does it? Kill them and be done with it,”_ ordered his father.

His ghosts were more interested in ridding Faerghus of another threat than in saving lives. He couldn’t say he didn’t blame them. A band of even just three could do a lot of damage, with resources going to the war instead of to patrolling the roads.

_“He’s served his purpose,”_ said Rufus.

_“Probably wouldn’t last very long out here anyway, with Imperial soldiers on the way,”_ said Glenn.

And that was another thing. The Empire marched closer every day, and not even Dimitri could kill _all_ of them. They would destroy everything in their path. The farmstead would be ashes within a matter of days.

The bandit leader didn’t seem to know what to do about him staring out at what must have looked like nothing at all. After a few moments, he settled on reiterating his threats. “Are you daft or something? Throw down your weapons and come let us bind your arms, else I’ll have Millie there cut his throat and feed him to the dogs.”

“Please, just listen to them,” begged the farmer.

_“Why do you hesitate?”_ asked Rufus. _“Are you really willing to let three traitors go to save someone who’s going to die soon anyway?”_

“Please!”

_“Do it!”_

Dimitri threw his lance through farmer and bandit both. It was a good blow- the farmer would have died quickly. Not instant, and not painless, but as close to either as he could get without striking him through the head. The bandit, slightly to her hostage’s right, wasn’t quite so lucky. The gurgling suggested she was drowning in her own blood.

The bandit leader stared at him in horror, mouth agape, then turned to run away. Dimitri was on him in an instant. The third managed to make it to the woods before he caught her.

He left the bodies on the ground to rot.


	18. Day 17: I Did Not See That Coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An angry parent blackmails Sylvain

The letter was short, to the point, and contained a number that almost made Sylvain choke just reading it. He reread it just to make sure. And then again. Shit. How was he going to handle something like _this?_ The worst part was that the accusation was entirely plausible.

“What’s that?” Ingrid asked as she reached over to steal a skewer from his plate. He fended her off with his other skewer, jabbing at her hand until it retreated. “Did your parents write you? You only get that look when it’s them.”

Sylvain folded the letter and tucked it away in his uniform pocket. “Yeah. Same nonsense as usual,” he lied.

Ingrid made a sympathetic noise and went back to chatting with Mercedes. She knew he needed his space when his family wrote. It turned out he also needed space when someone was accusing him of knocking up her daughter. How had this even happened? He’d taken all the necessary precautions, and so had she.

And where was he even going to get fifty thousand gold?

He dismissed the idea of just marrying the woman. His parents would have it annulled in an instant- she was not only a commoner, but an _Alliance_ commoner. His parents held the opinion that the Alliance was barely a country at all, what with how they had dispensed of kings entirely and ruled by mob. A Faerghan commoner might be tolerated as a mistress, but an Alliance one was completely out of the question.

...marrying her _would_ piss them off pretty well, admittedly. But no. Sylvain was not looking forward to being imprisoned in the family manor for the rest of his life. He doubted _she_ was, either.

What other choice did he have, though? He didn’t have anything resembling that much money (his family did, but would never pay it), and if he let the blackmailer talk... Well, at the very least he’d be expelled. And then probably be assigned to border duty on the rare occasion he wasn’t, well, imprisoned in the family manor.

He’d have to talk to the woman in question. See if she was really pregnant, or if her parents had just learned of his reputation and decided to use it to get out of poverty. If it was true, he could try to negotiate. Fifty thousand gold was out of the question, but he could do five hundred. Maybe even five thousand if they gave him the time to earn it. Of course, the problem with that was that blackmailers never stayed bought. They always found a reason to keep asking for more.

Worst case scenario, he could always run away to Abyss.


	19. Day 18: Panic! At The Disco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernadetta’s debutante ball goes poorly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: panic attack, mentions of vomiting

A debutante ball was supposed to be exciting, Bernadetta thought. It was supposed to be fun. But all she could think of was her too-tight shoes and her too-itchy headdress and her too-heavy dress with the seven layers of skirts that somehow still left her arms exposed and chilled under a thin layer of lace. 

At least it gave her something to think about other than the stares. There were hundreds of eligible bachelors on the prowl, looking for a potential wife among the eighty debutantes being newly introduced to Adrestian society, and among the daughters of the the hundreds of other noblemen in attendance who might be interested in making an arrangement in advance.

She made it through the first dance, the most important one, by rote. Her steps wooden, her partner anonymous and thankfully dull and inoffensive. But she was certain he was going to have a laugh about her later. A lady should be dignified and elegant. Not quaking in her shoes, not sweating through her gloves (even though the sheer number of candles in the ballroom were making it far, far too warm in there), and not...

Well, not Bernadetta.

There were too many people in here. In any moment she was going to trip or step on someone’s shoe and she’d make such a fool out of herself that she’d be banished from court forever and her father would be so angry with her that he’d skip the chair and go right on to casting her out onto the street or worse, sending her out to a Faerghan convent where it got so cold that you could spit and it would freeze before it hit the ground and she’d be dead by the first winter.

And it was just too loud in here with the musicians and the singers and all the feet of all the dancers (even though a proper lady danced _silently_ ), and all the talking of all of the people making deals with each other or engaging in petty sniping because that’s what politics meant in these peaceful times and everything just seemed to be getting louder and-

She had to go.

Don’t run. Ladies don’t run. This song is almost over. Finish the dance. Don’t step on his feet! Say you need some fresh air, and then go.

Door to the right. Yes, there’s a crowd. Go through it anyway. Just go.

Go.

Don’t throw up until you’re out of sight. Don’t get it on your dress. Cry _quietly._ Father mustn’t hear of this. Well, no one should, but father especially. Or else it would be the streets or the Faerghan convent or Abyss for poor Bernie. It was hard to be discreet when she was panicking so badly, but she had to try.

(On the other side of the door, her dance partner stood guard, distracting or sending away anyone who might otherwise overhear what was happening outside. A von Aegir never abandoned someone in need.)


	20. Day 19: Broken Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth deals with their father’s death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: referenced character death

Byleth didn’t know how to grieve.

The Jeralt Company had lost members before, yes. Mercenary work was dangerous, and battles were ruthless ordeals that could take even the most skilled fighter long before their prime. Byleth had grown up knowing that any mistake- a missed parry, a poorly-timed swing, a foot placed in the wrong place- could lead to their death.

But Jeralt... their father had always seemed above that. Even in the worst jobs- like the time a thunderstorm had come through in the middle of battle and half the company had gotten trapped in mud along with their opponents- he’d come out unharmed and usually even with all his dignity intact. Many of the members had whispered among themselves that he was _immortal._

Well, that had certainly been wrong, hadn’t it? He hadn’t even died fighting. Being stabbed in the back by someone he’d thought he’d rescued was no way to go.

On the fifth day after their father’s death, the company quartermaster had come to drag them out of their room. She sat them down with tea pilfered from the Monastery stores and beer pilfered from the company stores and had them listen as the rest of the company just... sit and chat and tell stories. Some were about their father- he’d been there for a lot of both the glorious and the ridiculous moments in the company’s history- but not all of them.

That was good, Byleth thought. There was a big gaping hole where their father used to be, and if everything had been about him then it would have only emphasized his loss. Instead, the stories seemed to soften things a little. Not much. But it was better than nothing.

After a while, they joined in. A tall tale here, a comment there. They didn’t speak up much; talking was hard, even among friends. But it felt better than just sitting in silence. And even though they weren’t much of a storyteller, the mercenaries always listened when they did.

The Jeralt company was Byleth’s family too, and they were going to prove it. Even if just by sitting and chatting and _being there._ That was the most important part, the quartermaster admitted after a couple of hours. The tales were distraction and entertainment. The presence of the others was what really mattered.

They felt a little better when they went back to their room, so late in the night that it was almost morning. Not by much. But it was better than nothing.


	21. Day 20: Toto, I Have A Feeling We’re Not In Kansas Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caspar is freed from the ruins of Fort Merceus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: graphic descriptions of injuries, amputation.

Ashe was talking to him, speaking soothing words in a gentle tone of voice. Caspar couldn’t focus on any of them, however. Not with the tourniquet around his arm and the surgeon’s blade cutting into his flesh.

Freeing him normally wasn’t possible, Ashe had explained as the surgeon prepared her tools. The chunk of ceiling that was pinning him down was too large and too heavy. Budging it wouldn’t be possible without smashing it into pieces, and even if they could spare a team to do it he’d likely bleed out before he could be freed.

They hadn’t even had any whiskey to dull his senses with.

The pain was nothing, he told himself. He’d been hurt before. He’d even been hurt quite badly before, when he’d caught a Miasma to the chest during a training accident. He could get through this easily.

(“Bonesaw,” the surgeon ordered. Ashe rushed to hand it to her.)

What Caspar didn’t know was if he could get through living without his arm. His entire life had been built around fighting. As a second son, he didn’t have much of a choice. Even if he did have a head for politics (which he definitely did not), trying to go into that field would just put him in conflict with his brother. The same went for trying to manage a household. No, becoming a general in the Imperial army was the only career for him.

And the Imperial army had no need for cripples. They weren’t like Dagda- they didn’t order soldiers around from far away, in perfect safety. No, Imperial generals were expected to lead from the front. They were expected to fight.

Even the loss of the off hand was a career killer. Caspar was losing his entire dominant arm.

Well. Had lost, he supposed. He didn’t want to look- if he didn’t confirm it, maybe it hadn’t happened- but he couldn’t feel it anymore. All he felt was the pressure of the tourniquet and a cold sensation as a healer closed off his vessels and sealed the wound.

The same healer shifted into his line of vision, her image clouded by tears, and began working on the chunk of metal jutting out of his stomach. The surgeon also came into view, but it was only to walk across the room and back out of view.

Was she looking for more limbs to lop off?

He almost laughed at the idea, but the prospect of laughing while a healer was pulling out pieces of... had that once been a _sabaton_? Regardless of what it was, laughing while it was still inside him promised regret.

Caspar still couldn’t focus on what Ashe was saying to him. Worse, he was finding it hard to focus on anything at all right now. Not the room, not the arm still under the rubble, not the burning pain of the healer fishing around inside him for broken off pieces of shrapnel. He felt lightheaded and dizzy, like he’d had too much to drink. Maybe it was a good thing they hadn’t been able to find him any whiskey.

Maybe if he just laid here for a while the world would start making sense...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sabaton is the piece of a mounted knight’s plate armor that covers the feet. Early ones were long and very pointy. Now imagine being kicked by one at explosive speeds...


	22. Day 21: I Don’t Feel So Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lysithea suffers from a side-effect of her crests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: chronic pain, brief mention of attempted self-mutilation

Today was a bad day. 

Lysithea knew that the moment she woke up and realized that she could barely get out of bed. Her bones hurt so much that they didn’t want to move, much less support her weight. But she had to. She had to get to class. The Professor didn’t tolerate tardiness.

It had been like this ever since she’d been “given” her crests. Some days, the best days that came once or twice a year, she could barely feel the ache. Most of the time it was a constance presence in the back of her mind. On the worst days, it was overwhelming. On the worst days, she wondered if she could rip the bones from her flesh to make the pain stop.

(She’d tried, once, when she was seven, but her parents kept the knives far out of the reach of children and she couldn’t get an edge with a spoon.)

She supposed her bones hurt because her blood couldn’t.

Today wasn’t a worst day, Lysithea thought. Just bad. She could probably force herself to get up without crying out. She managed it on the third try, and even managed the unsteady stagger over to her dresser for the precious container of powdered willow bark she kept tucked underneath her smallclothes. It was horribly bitter, even if she put honey in the tea it made, and it didn’t help much, but at least she could pretend she felt a little better.

Not for the first time, she regretted not arranging something with Manuela. Poppy milk was too dangerous to self-dose with, but if she could come in even just once a week... No, too risky. Manuela wasn’t exactly discreet, and if Lysithea wanted to be taken seriously, she couldn’t let anyone know about her affliction. Willow bark would have to do.

She managed the ordeal of getting dressed, and the ordeal of brushing her hair and generally making herself presentable, and the ordeal of getting her notes together for class. Each little action sapped more and more of her energy, but it all had to be done. She didn’t have enough time left to spend any of it lounging around feeling sorry for herself.

The worst ordeal would be walking to class. She already wasn’t looking forward to feeling like she was being speared in the knees and hips every time she took a step, but if she could make it to class, then she could sit down and not move and focus on the comparatively smaller ordeal of paying attention to whatever Byleth thought she needed to learn today.

The constant pain in her hands would make taking notes hard, but she could manage. She’d done it before, and she could do it again.

She didn’t have a choice.


	23. Day 22: Do These Tacos Taste Funny To You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude deals with yet another assassination attempt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Poison, vomiting, harm to children (Claude is 15 in this)

Khalid walked steadily and without haste. Hurry was needed, yes, but it would warn his cousin that he had figured him out, and he only wanted to deal with _one_ assassination attempt tonight. If he was right about what the poison was, he had the time for it.

_If_ he was right. He was pretty sure he’d tasted it before. The apothecary had made a point to have him taste all the poisons that could be done in safe enough doses, so he’d know them if he needed to; in that profession, a mixup between two jars was a _problem,_ as she’d phrased it.

If he was wrong and it wasn’t belladonna juice in his wine, _then_ he could worry. There were other possibilities- poisonous berries were unfortunately common- or it could have been used to disguise the taste of something else. At least he knew it couldn’t be arsenic- spreading that rumor that he was immune to it had done wonders in cutting down on the number of nights he spent throwing up. Unfortunately, it hadn’t stopped it entirely.

(He’d made himself resistant, yes, but mere _resistance_ didn’t matter much when the perpetrator could just increase the dose.)

The walk to his room was unfortunately long. Going up stairs wasn’t something he wanted to deal with in a situation like this one, but living on the third floor was an excellent way of repelling the more direct assassins. Someone who had to climb couldn’t be picky about their available handholds, which was why Khalid had lined the ones by his window with venomstone needles. If they survived the fall, the venomstone would be an excellent reminder to pick an easier target next time.

When he got to his room, he bypassed the obvious jar of powdered charcoal- it was just a decoy and had probably been poisoned itself years ago- and went for the one he kept sewn up in his mattress. Then he retrieved his chamberpot, sighed, and stuck a finger down his throat.

It was kind of sad that he was already used to doing this.


	24. Day 23: What’s A Whumpee Gotta Do To Get Some Sleep Around Here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Linhardt has problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: People being asshats about a medical condition.

Linhardt liked sitting down because it meant he could fall asleep without falling. He’d done that a lot in his younger days, before he came to know his limits and learned how to tell a sleep attack was coming. They happened more when he was tired, which was yet another reason to avoid strenuous activity, and could come at any time (including, once, while riding a horse). However, even when fully rested, the episodes could come with little warning.

One moment he would be walking to the dining hall, and the next moment he would be face-down on the ground as his brain tried to piece together what exactly had happened. Getting up was usually an ordeal- after one attack, usually several would come quickly after, so that more often than not his legs would collapse under him even as he tried to stand up.

Caspar was the only one who didn’t use it against him.

“Oh, he’s just lazy,” said his father.

“Nah, he’s just weak. Like a newborn deer. Make him march with the soldiers for a few months, that’ll toughen him up!” said his uncle.

“Everyone gets tired from time to time. You need to learn to keep yourself under control,” said his mother.

“That’s the Goddess punishing you for poking into Her business too much,” said the monks at Garreg Mach.

“He’s faking it to get out of class,” said the first professor, the one that Byleth had replaced.

But Caspar understood that he couldn’t help being tired all the time, that falling asleep in odd places or while training wasn’t something he wanted and that, to be completely honest, sometimes scared him. What if he fell asleep in the middle of battle? Better to avoid it entirely, just in case.

When Linhardt collapsed in the middle of chores, Caspar helped him back up. When he spaced out and didn’t notice anything for a few second, Caspar covered from him. When he stared at his assignment, unable to focus on the words or even remember that he was supposed to be reading them, Caspar redirected him to something that didn’t need much attention.

On more than one occasion, he blanked out during class and came to with a folded uniform jacket tucked under his head like a pillow. His notes were always placed far enough away that he couldn’t write meaningless scribbles on them in the meantime, because often enough he would try to take notes in his sleep.

(The first professor had used that as “evidence” that he was faking it.)

When Edelgard declared war on the church, the attacks came more and more frequently. Marching to battle was an ordeal sure to bring on an episode, and often enough he’d be tied to his horse so he wouldn’t fall off. He’d heard the soldiers laughing about it once- the healer so lazy he couldn’t stay on his horse without help!

Linhardt apparently healed someone in his sleep once, but he didn’t remember a second of it. He did know that sometimes the world would _stutter_ for lack of a better world. He’d lose just a few seconds at a time, but it happened so often...

For a while he thought he’d figured out how to compensate for it, but then came Fort Merceus. One moment, he was rushing to drag a wounded soldier away from the battle, and the next moment he was face-down on the ground as his brain tried to piece together what exactly had happened. Caspar wasn’t there to help him stand back up without collapsing again. None of his battalion were there, either- they were too busy running away. From-

Leonie and her archers were on him before he could get his legs beneath him. He was swiftly disarmed, bound, and thrown over the side of a horse. A captured enemy general was more valuable than a dead one, and one that doubled as a healer even more so. He missed half the trip out of the fort, losing just a few seconds of time per episode. But it happened so often...

He didn’t miss the explosion that destroyed the fort. He didn’t miss the aftermath. He didn’t miss when the search party came back saying that none of the surviving Imperials were anyone useful. No commanders, no generals. No Caspar.


	25. Day 24: You’re Not Making Any Sense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernadetta is kidnapped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: kidnapping, mentions of marital rape and sexual harassment

Bernadetta couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t hear anything. She was in a sack, in a box, cushioned in a way that obscured everything that filtered through and also kept her from hurting herself when she thrashed and screamed and tried to beat her way out until her hands were bruised with the effort.

She didn’t know where she was- on a cart, yes, she could feel the rocking and rattling despite the cushioning and it had already made her throw up in her mouth once already- but she had no way to find out where it was going. Her captors never answered when she cried and pleaded for answers, and only ever spoke to her on those few occasions when she was let out to eat and use the privy in the woods, and it was only to tell her not to try running away.

Not that it mattered, because she was always kept blindfolded and wouldn’t know where to run anyway. If she just picked a direction and went for it, she was sure to run into a tree or off a cliff or right back into the arms of her guards, because after the first time she tried taking it off they kept one nearby to yell at her if her hand ever drifted higher than her mouth.

Where were they taking her? Was she going to be held for ransom? Forcibly married to a horrible old man who would force her to churn out crest baby after crest baby until her body gave out? Forcibly married to a foreign prince who didn’t know what a crest baby was but would force her to churn out baby after baby anyway? Or maybe she was going to be forcibly married to one of the mysterious strangers that visited the Varley estate and talked to her father for hours and sometimes muttered strange and alarming things about blood and crests, which was admittedly pretty normal for nobility but she’d already been introduced to everyone ranking enough to be worth allying with and they weren’t one of them.

Or maybe the Church had decided that the Empire wasn’t sufficiently pious and was taking not just her, but a whole bevy of stolen daughters to teach the Empire nobles a lesson and it would lead to a horrible war that would devastate the continent and it would all be her fault and she’d be stuck at a Faerghan convent up until the Adrestian retaliation burned it down and she’d probably be stuck inside it unable to get out and she’d end up burned alive by her own side.

She was crying again and she had to stop. Crying would just get her soaking wet and make the journey even more unpleasant, and if she was getting married off it would probably be to someone who liked that kind of thing and the last thing she wanted to do was encourage him.

Bernadetta had been warned about the kind of people that liked to kidnap young noblewomen who ventured outside the safety of their manor, and while the stories were all about commoners she didn’t see any reason why nobles would be any better. It had always been noblemen who tried to look down her dress at balls or brushed against her shoulders in passing or suggested they go “get some fresh air” when everyone knew unattached men and women must never, ever be alone together so it had to be some horrible euphemism. If they would do that in public, then who knew what they would do in private?

She didn’t know what to think when she was let out for the last time and found herself at the gates of the Garreg Mach Officer’s Academy.


	26. Day 25: I Think I’ll Just Collapse Right Here, Thanks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hilda recovers from a battle at Fodlan’s Locket

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Battle aftermath

Hilda staggered away from the battlefield, the cries of dying men ringing in her ears. Her arms were tired, her legs buckling, her hands so tightly clutched to the shaft of her axe that they might as well be fused to it. But the battle was won, and the Almyrans repelled. That was all that mattered.

There was blood dripping into her eyes from a cut on her forehead, courtesy of an arrow that had just barely missed piercing her skull. It hadn’t even been an enemy arrow- one of the archers on her own side had panicked and shot wildly instead of taking careful aim. She could just imagine hearing Holst chewing the man out over it, except it could never happen- the archer in question was dead. Almyran archers were much more skilled.

With a groan, she slumped down against the side of a broken ballista and tried to wipe the blood from her eyes with an elbow, but only succeeded in smearing it across her face. Her hands refused to let go of her axe. Letting go was death. She had to stay armed. She had to-

A hand pressed a wet cloth against her forehead, sopping up the blood still leaking from the wound. “Don’t sit now- you’ll never want to get up again,” said Claude’s voice. “Up you go.”

Hilda groaned, but staggered to her feet. She just wanted to crawl into her bed and sleep. No, she didn’t even need a bed. A somewhat soft patch of ground would do her well. She could clean herself up tomorrow.

She was vaguely aware of a pair of hands carefully prying her own away from the shaft of her weapon. She resisted, mostly out of sheer spite, and wobbled off in the direction of the Professor, or at least, the blue-topped blob that she was pretty sure was Byleth. Her eyes were _still_ covered in sweat and blood despite Claude’s best efforts, and they didn’t want to open wide enough to see properly.

“Welcome to Fodlan’s Locket,” someone- one of her brother’s captains, from the voice- was saying to the blob. “We get an invasion this size, oh, about once a year. Smaller ones every few months, when they don’t have the soldiers for a real invasion.”

“This didn’t seem like much of a real invasion,” replied the blob, and yeah that was definitely the Professor talking. “A decent raiding party, sure, but you’d think someone seriously trying to invade would have brought siege equipment.”

“In these mountains? You’d have better luck- oh, Lady Hilda!”

Hilda misestimated the distance for a clap on the soldier, and ended up just sort of waving her hand in the air instead. “Sigurd,” she said in greeting. “Professor, how is everyone?”

She didn’t _expect_ to get a full report she could doze off too while still looking like she was doing something, but she would have appreciated something more than, “They’re fine.”

And then Claude was nudging her in another direction, and fine. Maybe she’d just make the rounds and see how everyone was. After that, it didn’t matter what he tried- she was just going to collapse on the ground for a week. She was tired enough for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not happy with this one but staring at it wasn’t making it any better.


	27. Day 26: If You Thought The Head Trauma Was Bad...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ferdinand has a secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: harm to children. As in, there’s a dead child. Also mentions of vomiting.

The first time Ferdinand saw the sun, agonizing pain lanced through his eyes and he went blind for an hour.

“Don’t look directly at it!” his handler chided as he tried desperately not to throw up. A hand tugged at his wrist. “Keep moving; we have to get to the safehouse before dark.”

He picked his way down the path, eyes squeezed shut and tearing up from the pain. Sun intolerance. It had to be. It was a common enough affliction in Shambhala, but the vast majority of people never got to learn they had it. Going to the surface was rare even for Thales’ team. It should be an honor. It didn’t feel like one.

“I can’t spy like this!” he protested as he stumbled through a bramble he couldn’t see. What good was an agent who went blind the moment they touched sunlight? He could already taste his mission’s failure, like ashes in his mouth. For a second, he imagined it could overpower the taste of vomit in the back of his throat.

He could almost feel his handler shaking her head. “Damn Thales and his ‘need to know’ policies... Your disguise will take care of that. And ‘spy’ is a strong word for it. We’ll contact you when we need you. Just keep your eyes open, don’t do anything to make your host suspicious, and be ready for our signal.”

That shouldn’t be too difficult; Ferdinand’s training had been thorough. He could speak the Adrestian noble dialect of the surfacer tongue without the slightest trace of an accent, and any personality changes could be blamed on trauma from being kidnapped. He even had the right crest now, taken from the boy who would become his disguise, and had been taught how to call it forth.

He’d been assured that the procedure had been perfected and that he shouldn’t feel any side effects from the transfer, but had been given a tale of mysterious mages and blood magic that should excuse anything that _did_ appear.

His eyes were still watering and it still hurt to try to open them, so he let his handler continue to guide him through the woods. He could feel the dappled sunlight through the trees- it made his skin itch like mad. How could surfacers live up here like this?

After a while, he heard the creak of a door opening. “We’re here,” the handler said.

The safehouse wasn’t large- it was just a one room shack that Ferdinand could walk the circumference of in just a few tens of seconds even while using a hand on the wall to guide him. There was no furniture to bump into, just a corpse that he kicked out of the way before he realized exactly what it was.

“Careful! That’s your disguise!” snapped the handler.

His vision was still blurred and teary, but he looked anyway. On the ground was a child his own age, with orange hair and orange eyes, so pale in death that he almost looked Agarthan. “I thought they needed to be alive to imprint them?” he asked.

“Yep. But the folks downstairs were careless, so you don’t get an imprint. Just a form. Sit down.”

Ferdinand was cross-legged on the floor before his brain was done processing the order. He had a better look at the body now that he was closer and vision was starting to clear up. No obvious injuries. No blood. Maybe the surfacer’s heart had given out when they were removing its crest. It wasn’t his place to ask.

The handler sat down as well, forming a triangle with the two of them and the corpse. Her hands crackled with magic. “Hold still...”

When it was over, the body was gone.


	28. Day 27: Ok, Who Had Natural Disasters On Their 2020 Bingo Card?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain hates blizzards. Same ‘verse as #5 and #7.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Past rape, past self-harm, domestic abuse, suicidal ideation

Sylvain hated blizzards. They were cold, they were wet, and they turned what _was_ a decent view of the sky and stars from his window into an overwhelming amount of nothing. Worse, his aunt was always late in coming up to shut the storm shutters, so his room tended to cool down enough that he was shivering even under his blankets.

His aunt used to let him downstairs to warm up by the fireplace, but after the last incident she no longer trusted him around fire. So now he also had to deal with his chains cooling down and making his wrists go numb, because he apparently needed to be kept away from any little thing he could use to harm himself. He was at the point where being allowed to eat at the table like a civilized person was a reward for _good behavior._ He wasn’t allowed a fork or knife, though. It was spoons or nothing.

This particular blizzard was going to be a bad one. He knew well what the front door sounded like when it was closed by someone who didn’t know how to do it quietly. That sound always meant his aunt had guests over. Guests meant suitors. Suitors meant a bad time for Sylvain under the best conditions. In a blizzard, though? The manor didn’t have much in the way of entertainment for guests. Forget riding him once and then leaving- he’d have to endure their company until the weather went back to normal.

Maybe he could pretend to be sick... No, he knew his aunt better than that. She hadn’t believed him that time he really was, so she certainly wouldn’t believe him if he tried to fake it.

The last blizzard had been the one time his parents had visited the manor since his capture. They hadn’t spoken to him. They hadn’t even come up to see him. If he hadn’t already been standing at the window, looking for birds, he wouldn’t have known they’d come at all. His aunt had certainly never mentioned them, other than an offhand ‘oh, we have guests so you can’t come downstairs.’

They knew he was there- his father had been the one to hand him over to his aunt in the first place- so it was likely because he wasn’t presentable enough to appear in front of others. As if it was his own fault he was thin and unsightly. As if it was his own fault he’d been chained to the bed and couldn’t properly groom himself. As if it was his own fault he was wasting away in an attic.

Maybe if he was lucky, this blizzard would be bad enough he’d freeze to death. Anything to get out of the manor.


	29. Day 28: Such Wow. Many Normal. Very Oops.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri has a “hunting accident.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: harm to animals? Do demonic beasts count as animals, or are they more like magical constructs wrapped around a human?

The demonic beast was ancient. It bristled with scars from fighting with its own kind- the marks along its back were clearly a bite wound from what would have been a larger beast at the time, and one of its eyes was missing- the socket nothing more than a mass of scar tissue by this point. As they watched, it casually shrugged off the deadfall they’d tried to trap it under.

“I think the Archbishop wanted us to take out escaped Imperial beasts, not... this,” said one of the mercenaries. Next to her, one of Dimitri’s cousins nodded in agreement. The man had personally asked for his help with this mission, and of course he’d want to see it completed _properly._

“It’s a demonic beast and it’s here,” Dimitri said as the monster let out a rumbling growl as low and loud as a thunderclap. Imperial demonic beasts never gave a warning before they struck- that was one of the reasons they were so much more dangerous than the wild ones. “The Archbishop will be glad to have one less haunting the area, and if she doesn’t pay you for it, the crown will.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” said the mercenary, raising her sword. “Ballistas! Fire!”

Both of the ballista bolts landed true, one striking the beast in the chest, and the other in the throat. Its growl, which _had_ started to crescendo into a roar, cut off with a gurgle. The demonic beast staggered and fell where it stood. The mercenaries, to their credit, did not run forward to try to claim proof of the kill. They’d fought in the war; they knew how these creatures worked. Many a soldier had been killed because they forgot that the damned things could regenerate.

Dark magic bubbled over the bolts, slowly expelling them from the demonic beast’s body. With a groan, the demonic beast staggered to its feet, coughing up ichor. Dimitri held up a hand on seeing one of the mercenaries draw back a bow- attacking it before the magic finished would only amount to wasted effort and a broken arrow. Distantly he heard the sound of the ballistas winding up for a second round.

The demonic beast was ready first. With a deafening shriek, it charged. Dimitri waited until the last second to dart to the side, striking the beast with his lance as it passed him. It ignored him, instead opting to smash into one of the ballistas and start tearing at it with tooth and claw.

“Fuck! Those are expensive!” groaned the mercenary leader. “Plan B!”

Before he knew what was happening, Dimitri was shoved at the demonic beast, who responded to the sudden movement by snapping its jaws at him. He barely managed to roll out of the way before it could bite him in half.

“Sorry, Your Majesty, but we both know it’s better this way!” he heard his cousin shout as the sound of footsteps started to fade into the distance.

That two-faced bastard son of a-! Dimitri cursed his cousin _and_ his rake of an uncle as the demonic beast gave up trying to bite him and started trying to stomp on him. Only reflexes honed in years of fighting against impossible odds kept him from being squished like a bug.

His first priority was surviving this. He didn’t have to _kill_ the demonic beast, just get away from it. Then he had to catch up with the mercenaries. That shouldn’t be too difficult- mercenary companies moved slowly and were not subtle. Lastly he was going to kill them, kill his cousin, and _spike their heads on the gates of Fhirdiad._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amazing [Ruunkur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruunkur/pseuds/Ruunkur) wrote a follow up to this fic! You can find it [here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27256816)


	30. Day 29: I Think I Need A Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ingrid recovers from a training accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings this time; it’s pretty mild.

“I’m fine!” Ingrid insisted as Manuela moved a finger from side to side in front of her eyes. She didn’t like the frown on the woman’s face. She especially didn’t like how _blurry_ it was.

Mercedes, who really had no grounds to be there considering she was the one who had tattled to Manuela in the first place, shook her head. “Head injuries are no joke! Even faith magic can only do so much with them.”

“It was barely a tap!”

“You were _unconscious,_ Ingrid. Felix was afraid he’d _killed_ you.”

Ingrid had a hard time believing that. Felix was better at fighting than that- he’d never kill someone _accidentally,_ and certainly not by knocking them over. Yes, it had been a bad fall, and yes, she had hit her head pretty hard, but it was just a fall!

Besides, she’d been out for only a couple of seconds. Ten at most. And so what if she had a few lingering effects? A headache was nothing- easily ignorable with the right tea. Her vision would clear up in time, she was certain. And even if it didn’t...

The Battle of Eagle and Lion was coming up soon and Ingrid had zero intention of missing it. Setting aside that it was the biggest event of the year other than the White Heron Cup, she couldn’t let her House down. Leave them a member short and their chances of winning would be sharply reduced.

Surely there had to be something she could say to convince them that she was well enough to fight! “Look, my head barely aches, and I’m clearly lucid if I’m able to argue with you. Doesn’t that mean I’m good enough to go? If I stay here, I’m only going to take up a bed that someone else might need.”

Mercedes gave her an unimpressed look. “And if you go now, you’ll go right back to training and risk injuring yourself even worse by fighting with brain commotion.”

Well yes, going back to training was exactly what she was going to do- some of her forms still weren’t right, and she had to be in perfect shape for the end of the month. Ingrid wasn’t going to be fool enough to injure herself in it, though. Maybe she could stay here until they found something else they needed to do, and then sneak out...

“I _will_ tie you to the bed if it makes you stay put,” Manuela threatened, having clearly noticed her glances towards the door.

Ingrid sighed, but didn’t make any move to get up. Manuela would absolutely follow through on that threat, and then where would she be? Fine, then. She’d rest for _one_ day. Then she had to get back to training. She couldn’t be the reason the Blue Lions lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Brain commotion” is a medieval/Renaissance phrase for “concussion.” When I read that I had to include it.


	31. Day 30: Now Where Did That Come From?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Blue Lions care for Dimitri

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: lots of self-loathing

Dimitri deserved this.

He deserved the burns on his leg, the product of a desperate fireball from a mage who found himself far too close to the front lines. He deserved the ache in his knee from a knight kicking it in a failed attempt to bring him down. He deserved the arrow shaft still embedded in his thigh.

So when he returned to Garreg Mach after days of riding and scaring off anyone who tried to approach him, Dimitri slunk into the ruined cathedral to lick his wounds in private. He was unworthy of seeing a healer, no matter what his Lions might say. He had some rags stashed in a corner under a piece of rubble- those would do for bandages. The puddle of rainwater that dripped from the broken ceiling would do for washing them.

Many times in the past five years he had had to cut the rot away from wounds that had started to go bad. In some cases doing so had hurt more than receiving the original wound had. But that was fine. It was what he deserved for failing his family, for failing his soldiers, for failing Dedue.

He did not deserve to be followed into the cathedral by his Lions. He did not deserve the worried looks and cautious hands pulling away his cloak and armor, looking for the source of the blood welling up to stain it. He did not deserve the gentle touch of Mercedes feeling for broken bones. He did not deserve Felix’s knife, cutting away the arrowhead, or the leather strap stuck between his teeth to bite into.

He definitely didn’t deserve the magic easing the pain away or Ingrid whispering soothing words into his ear (though, he noted, she hesitated to put her hand in his to hold onto while Annette scrubbed the burnt, dead flesh from his legs. He was dangerously strong even injured.) He didn’t deserve Sylvain and Ashe helping him to the bath to wash the dirt and grime from his body.

Couldn’t they see what a monster he was? He’d think that Felix, at least, would know that a savage beast could not, should not be tamed- only aimed. The man had called him a boar often enough. But no. While Ashe washed his hair and Sylvain scrubbed his back, Felix was the one who came by with a basket of clean clothes.

He didn’t understand.


	32. Day 31: Today’s Special: Torture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything goes horribly wrong. Featuring the Claude from numbers 2, 6, 11, and 15.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Harm to children, eye trauma

Everything had been going... not _smoothly,_ not in this place. But business as usual. They were locked up, fed, he tried and failed to escape, he tried and failed to strike or bite the caretaker. The usual daily routine. But then...

Then the other children were taken away.

The caretaker came to give them their morning meal, knocked them out with magic, and when Khalid woke up the others were gone. So were the children in the room across the hall, the ones next to them, and everyone else he could see through the window. The usual chatter heard echoing back and forth in the corridor was almost completely silent.

There were only two other children left- a brother and sister pair who were just as confused as he was. They and Khalid shouted back and forth between their rooms for hours, trying to figure out what was going on, but never learned much more than what was already blatantly obvious. At least he had someone to talk to; his toys weren’t much for conversation.

When the children were returned the next day, it should have made things better. Instead, they came back changed. Yasin collapsed into his cot and buried his face in his pillow, insisting he was never getting up again. Samira refused to look at him. And Aliya...

Aliya’s eyes were _red._ Not the solid red of a few of the ghouls, but the red of those few animals that were sometimes born completely white. Khalid had only seen one before, a white squirrel that had been gifted to his mother by a Srengi dignitary and was often seen carried around on her shoulder.

“Why did they leave _you_ alone?” she snapped at him before he could ask what had happened.

As the days passed it became clear that Khalid’s roommates, and everyone else who was taken away, had been made half-blind by what the ghouls had done. They could barely see more than a few feet in front of them, and most of the time they felt their way around rather than bothering to look. Any direct light other than the very dimmest caused intense pain. The chatter in the corridor, not especially positive to begin with, was now entirely made of complaints and crying.

To make things worse, there was now a new morning routine. Where the caretaker used to come in alone to bring their food and clean their room, she now appeared with a second ghoul, who Khalid mentally dubbed “the scribe,” whose apparent job was to take the children aside and test them on what they could see. 

Not Khalid, though. No one ever interacted with Khalid.

His roommates noticed. They noticed that he was left alone, that he could see properly, that he still had the bright green eyes so unusual for an Almyran, and they didn’t like it. On the fifth day, Aliya demanded to know what he’d done to be so favored. When he didn’t have an answer for her, she slapped him across the face and spat out her question again.

When he insisted that he hadn’t done anything, Samira and Yasin joined in.

Khalid didn’t have a chance, not against the three of them. He couldn’t flee, not with the small size of the room. Their toys were soft and worthless as an easy improvised weapon, and even the furniture was padded. He definitely didn’t have time to try to _make_ something, but even if he did, what could he do? Rip his nightgown intro strips and braid it into a whip? Just hitting someone would be more effective.

“Just hitting someone” was all that Yasin needed. He’d been a farmboy before his kidnapping, and he still had all the muscles that went with that. His punches were almost as hard as a mule’s kick. All Khalid could do was curl up into a ball, shield his head with his arms, and wait for them to get bored.

...if they ever got bored. Aliya was still screaming at him, Samira was calling out suggestions to Yasin in incomprehensible street cant- there were probably a hundred things “crop ‘im!” could mean and none of them were good- and he was certain the other children were listening in and possibly making suggestions of their own.

He was in the middle of fighting off Aliya’s attempt to yank his hands away from his face so Samira could gouge out his eyes when he heard the distinct sound of the door opening. With all his remaining strength, he wrenched away from the group and bolted through it, past the caretaker, and started running.

The caretaker knew all his hiding spots by now, but his roommates didn’t. He had to reach one of them before the magic knocked him out. He didn’t want to think about what could happen if his roommates found him unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s a wrap everybody!
> 
> I intend to expand a few of these out into full fics in the future. If you have any you’re especially interested in for this, tell me and I’ll add ‘em to the mental list. No guarantees that my brain will cooperate, but I’ll try!


End file.
